Some dog owners claim to be able to read the face of their cuddly canine like a book, but it’s completely possible they’re just projecting. New research suggests it’s not just their imagination, and that dogs really do switch on the puppy eyes —but only in the presence of a captive audience.
Evolution works very slowly—except when it doesn’t. New research shows that certain British birds appear to be changing quickly as result of bird feeders, evolving longer beaks to help them access the food inside.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has issued its forecast for the 2017-18 winter season and, for the second year in a row, La Niña is poised to be a major factor in how the season shapes up. In general, the forecasters are predicting a cooler, wetter north, and a warmer, drier south.
The microscopic processes involved in human fertilization are a difficult thing to convey visually, but a group of scientists, using Star Wars as their inspiration, have managed to do just that, creating a highly entertaining and informative video—while accidentally stumbling upon a new scientific discovery in the…
For years, scientists have wondered if dark, crater-like features on the lunar surface might be entrances to giant caverns carved long ago by flowing lava. Researchers from Japan and the United States have uncovered new evidence to prove that these features actually exist—which is good news for future lunar colonists…
Remember AlphaGo, the first artificial intelligence to defeat a grandmaster at Go? Well, the program just got a major upgrade, and it can now teach itself how to dominate the game without any human intervention. But get this: In a tournament that pitted AI against AI, this juiced-up version, called AlphaGo Zero,…
The Natural History Museum of London has announced the winners of the 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition. Highlights of this year include bioluminescent termite mounds, hoards of giant spider crabs, a juvenile gorilla lounging on the forest floor—and an absolutely heartbreaking image of a poached black…
Researchers from Sweden made headlines last week after claiming to have found the Arabic characters for “Allah” and “Ali” woven into Viking burial costumes. The discovery suggested a more intimate cultural relationship between the Vikings and the Arab world, but some experts are now questioning key assertions made by…
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, or in the case of the southeastern United States, it’s an alligator-eat-shark kind of a world, according to an unsettling new study from Kansas State University scientists.
Humans and dogs have a long history of working together, leading to the assumption that the collaborative abilities of dogs are the result of domestication. New research suggests this isn’t the case, and that wolves are far better at cooperation than their domesticated cousins, at least when they’re cooperating with…
If you were soaring above the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, you’d see mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, but you might also run into a monsoon-like rainstorm. Severe weather doesn’t happen very often on Titan, but new research suggests than when it does, the skies unleash torrents of liquid methane that…
In 1911, two teams—one from Norway and one from Britain—vied to become the first to reach the South Pole. Led by Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian team won the race, while all five members of Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition perished on the return journey home. New research suggests Amundsen’s team may have…
An investigation into the oral health of captive orca whales is raising serious concerns about the health and welfare of these majestic creatures. Out of boredom and frustration, many of the whales turn to chewing on concrete and steel tank surfaces, causing wear and tear that leads to further problems.
Later today, SpaceX will launch a previously flown Falcon 9 rocket to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO), where it will drop off an EchoStar 105/SES-11 communications satellite. Following deployment, the rocket will attempt a landing on a droneship stationed in the Atlantic ocean. You can watch it live right here…
Early tomorrow, a small asteroid will zip past Earth well inside the Moon’s orbit. NASA says poses no threat, but astronomers around the world will use the opportunity to test the international community’s ability to detect and track potentially dangerous objects.
New research shows that some scorpions can tailor their venom depending on the task at hand, whether it be snatching its next meal or protecting itself against predators. It marks the first time that scientists have documented the ability of an animal to adjust the toxicity of its venom according to need.
In 1944, Marcel Nadjari—a Greek Jew who was forced to remove bodies from the Auschwitz gas chambers—buried a letter in a forest near the camp. The text was rediscovered in 1980, but it was virtually unreadable. Using a new imaging technique, scientists have finally reconstructed the letter, and it’s providing…
By analyzing sooty birds housed in museum collections, scientists have been able to track patterns of US air pollution over the last 135 years. As the new study shows, air at the turn of the 20th century was even dirtier than we thought—a finding that will now be used to improve our climate models.
An innovative surgical glue developed by researchers from the United States and Australia seals wounds quickly and without the need for staples or stitches. The squirtable substance could eventually be used in surgeries and in emergency situations, though it still needs to be tested on humans.
Aside from some floating dust, our Moon has absolutely no atmosphere to speak of. New research suggests this wasn’t always the case, and that long ago, an atmosphere briefly popped into existence as a result of intense volcanic activity.
